Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati hugging a relative of one of the staff members of her ministry who was on board Lion Air flight JT-610

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JAKARTA
: Indonesian navy divers on November 1 morning recovered the ‘black box’, a crucial instrument which holds vital clues on what caused Lion Air flight JT610 to crash into sea on October 29. The black box was found in good condition and at a depth of about 30m.

Retrieving the black box will be key to on-going investigation into the cause of Monday's crash, one of the worst in the country's aviation history. All 189 people on board are feared dead.

Aviation experts have said the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder hold data and information that help explain nearly nine in 10 crashes.

Meanwhile, Indonesia's Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi announced removal of the technical director of Lion Air airlines and several of its technicians responsible for green signal of the ill-fated plane JT610.

The national search and rescue agency Basarnas ruled out the possibility that the plane exploded in mid-air, as the debris and human remains found showed no signs of being burnt.

The plane is believed to have broken up into pieces upon severe impact with the sea surface after it dived at a rapid speed from a height of around 900m.

The discovery of body parts suggested a high-impact crash in water off the coast of Indonesia's Java Sea.

Data from Flightradar24, a flight tracking system, showed that the plane fell from 4,825 feet in less than 25 seconds, with the velocity reaching 480 kph.